


First Blood

by caecias



Category: BIRDMEN - 田辺イエロウ | Tanabe Yellow
Genre: Blackouts, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8108770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caecias/pseuds/caecias
Summary: Wherein the blackouts are harder to defeat alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> based on my idea from [ this post!](http://sagisawarei.tumblr.com/post/150664055664/an-au-of-sorts)  
> Enjoy!

The first blackout visits Sou barely two nights after the plane accident. He’s only just released from the hospital, and now there’s a great big blackness in the night sky of South America, throbbing and dripping. It reminds Sou of an American superhero comic he looked through once. Cool, maybe he can be a hero; his first victory will be defeating this blackout!

It struggles through the sky-void, insectile limbs pulling free with a squelch. A black mandible appears, snapping furiously as it plops through the hole. Sou grimaces. He hates bugs. 

The blackout creature-bug-thing finally liberates itself from the hole, falling to the earth with a thud so loud it rattles Sou’s bones. Sou puts his fists up, remembering what he learned from his friend’s bring-a-friend-to-practice day for karate. Alright, Sou thinks, come at me with all you got!

The monster surges at Sou, faster than he expected. He throws his punch hurriedly, and the monster dodges with ease, barrelling into him. Sou chokes, and flies backwards several feet before skidding into the stop sign near the hospital. Sou can barely scramble up before the creature charges again, and this time one of its limbs grazes his arm. Blood runs down from the wound.

Sou clambers away as quickly as he can, clutching at the wound. It’s too fast, how is he supposed to beat it? As if it heard him, the creature charges Sou once more, but this time, he’s slightly more prepared for it, and he runs like hell to the tree next to the hospital, scaling it at a speed that squirrels would envy.

Nested among the branches, Sou apprehensively looks down. The thing is circling the tree, but it looks like it can’t climb. He heaves a sigh of relief before looking at his wound properly. Already it’s mostly healed. Sou stares, fascinated, as the wound closes up, the skin surrounding it becoming gradually less red as time goes by. 

BOOM. Sou snaps back to attention, grabbing onto the branches for balance. The monster’s ramming the tree now; so powerfully that Sou realizes that he can probably only hold on for a few more rounds.

Really, how is Sou supposed to beat this thing? Something flashes into his mind--that woman on the plane...what did she say again?

_“Look carefully at my back.”_

The wings. Large, black wings had sprouted from her back as she walked away. Does that mean that Sou can do it too?

BOOM. After resettling himself, Sou envisions dark wings of his own bursting from his skin, spreading forth, poised for flight. To his delight, it works. His shirt ripped, though. 

BOOM. This charge catches Sou off guard, and he’s flung into the air violently. Sou stretches out his wings, imagines flapping them back and forth, escaping gravity’s inexorable pull and soaring to the heights above. He fails.

He crashes to the ground heavily, knocking the wind out of his lungs and smearing dirt all over himself. Sou struggles to his feet.

A searing pain blossoms in his abdomen, forcing a strangled cry from Sou. Sou realizes that he’s been stabbed, by one of the unexpectedly sharp appendages of the creature. He can see the tip protruding from his stomach--the limb managed to pierce through his whole body. Sou tastes metal in his mouth.

It hurts worse when the monster pulls its limb free of Sou’s body. The barbed ends of the leg tear through his stomach, drenching him in blood. He vomits blood, too, and as he does the edges of his vision disappear. There’s a ringing in his ears.

The blackout rushes him again, and Sou has to roll away, wincing when he puts pressure on the wound. A weapon, Sou thinks faintly, fighting unconsciousness, I need a weapon. Weakly, he gropes for a weapon, anything that he can use to defend himself.

Sou doesn’t find one. He’s in a hospital yard at night, after all. And yet, as he continues his futile search, he feels something slither into his hands. It’s some sort of dark material, sharp and pointed. A weapon. Where did it come from? Sou wonders.

Sou doesn’t have time to ponder on it, though--the creatures coming at him again. He holds the strange sword in front of him and swings, much too early. 

The blackout screams, and scuttles away from Sou. It’s an unholy noise, nothing like Sou’s ever heard before. A black, viscous liquid is dripping from the monster. He managed to hit it? Sou glances at his weapon. It’s twice as long as it was before, although now it’s shrinking back to the original size. Sou’s never seen a sword that could change size before. He wonders what kind of material it’s made of.

The weapons ripples in his hand, and Sou grips it with more confidence. This time, he charges the blackout, yelling loudly as he swings. The sword shoots out, and neatly slices one of the front limbs off. The monster hisses, and snaps forward in revenge, taking a chunk of Sou’s leg with it.

Sou stumbles, but he swings again, nicking the creature’s thorax. The blackout counters by stabbing Sou through his sword hand, sweeping upward through the wrist and across the forearm. Sou screams and drops the weapon, but it creeps into his other hand.

The deadly exchange of blows continues, the parties growing more ragged. The creature’s missing a few limbs now, and puncture marks litter its thorax. Sou’s blind in one eye, and the other he can barely see through the blood that’s dripped into it. His head is throbbing.

Sou lunges forward, putting what little strength he has left into the thrust, but he can see that the monster’s already dodging it. Until his front heel slips, extending his stride just enough that his sword impales the blackout right between where the eyes should be. 

The creature screams once more before crumbling away into infinitesimal grains of dust. Sou falls to his knees, dropping his weapon, which whisks itself away and towards Sou’s back. 

It’s his wings, he realizes numbly. Whatever makes up the wings can also be used as a weapon. Sou files that fact away. 

Whatever held him through the battle abruptly vanishes, and instantly he collapses. He’s out like a light.

When Sou comes to, he’s lying flat on his back, and he’s surrounded by doctors, one of whom he recognizes to be his own from earlier today. He’s looking at Sou, wide-eyed.

“ _Diabo._ ” Sou can barely make out what he said, not that he can understand it.

The other doctors are speaking quickly, jabbing their fingers at him and gesticulating wildly. Sou ignores them and closes his eyes again, replaying the battle over and over again in his mind.

When will the next one come?

**Author's Note:**

> once again, angst from me. it ended up more violent than i expected it to be. whoops.


End file.
